Map 44. Cayuga via Dunnville to the mouth of the Grand River as it empties into Lake Erie at Port Maitland.
It’s 22 km via Haldimand 17 and (briefly) Ontario 3 from Cayuga Bridge to Dunnville Bridge. It’s 10.2 km via North Shore Drive and Feeder Canal Road from Dunnville Bridge to the P at the Port Maitland Cairn on the east side of the river. It’s 8 km via Port Maitland Road from Dunnville Bridge to Port Maitland Pier P on the west side side of the river. As Dunnville Bridge is the last vehicular crossing of the Grand, to visit both sides of the mouth of the Grand River on the same day involves backtracking via Dunnville.
Except for the river frontage in Dunnville, the Byng Island Conservation Area when it’s open, and the harbour at Port Maitland, there is almost no public access to the riverbank here on this more than 30 km stretch of the lower Grand. A pity, I think you’ll agree.
River Road on the west bank is a pleasant scenic route, but offers only the occasional glimpse of the river that it follows fairly closely from the west end of the Cayuga Bridge to Akens Road west of Byng. The Grand Valley Trail is routed via this section of River Road, and it’s probably the best route for cyclists. As for hikers … take the car! It’s not pleasant or safe to walk the roads on either side of the river in this area.
Map 44A: Dunnville. The Grand is a big river here, more than 500 m wide and up to 1 km from bank to bank when divided by islands. B = Dunnville Bridge and Dam; C = Dunnville Riverside Cemetery; F = Feeder Canal, Dunnville Branch; M = Muddy the Mudcat (Centennial Park). There’s a free P in Centennial Park and ample free street P in Dunnville.
618. I reproduce this old map of Moulton and Sherbrooke, two former townships north and east of the Grand’s mouth, for two reasons. First, it indicates the course of the Feeder to the Welland Canal from Dunnville northwest towards the main Welland Canal (more about this at #627 and #632 below). Second, it reminds us that this area included much of Blocks 5 and 6, the two remaining areas of the Haldimand Grant to Six Nations that Joseph Brant put up for sale.
Block 5 was an area of 30,800 acres on the east bank of the Grand bordering Lake Erie. The price was £5,775, and it was bought by William Jarvis,* a Loyalist prominent in Niagara. He paid a deposit of £600, then “covered the balance with a mortgage, and forthwith forgot to make any further payments” (Dunham 170). In financial difficulties, Jarvis later surrendered the Block in return for the £600 he’d laid out, and in 1807 it was sold to Thomas Douglas, Lord Selkirk. Selkirk, known for resettling poor Scottish farmers in Canada, gave William Claus, the Indian agent, security for £3,475. But for obscure reasons, Selkirk, considered a reliable debtor, never paid off the mortgage, which “is still lying in the Registry Office at Dunnville” (170). On Selkirk’s death, Block 5 passed into the hands of Henry John Boulton, whose family originated in the Moulton estate in Lincolnshire, England, hence the name of the former township which had Dunnville as its seat.
The smaller Block 6, 19,000 acres, was northeast of Moulton and would eventually become part of the former township of Canborough. It was given by Joseph Brant as a gift for services rendered to Six Nations to John Dochsteder (a.k.a. Doxtader), a white Loyalist lieutenant married to a Mohawk woman. Dochsteder had been sent by the Indian Department to be agent for the Cayugas. In 1810 Dochsteder sold the tract to Benjamin Canby for £5,000, intending to use the money to provide for his children. But William Claus, acting as executor, gave Canby clear title without demanding any payment, and Dochsteder’s children subsequently received nothing from the estate.
So, no Haudenosaunee individuals or Nations received anything from the “sales” of Blocks 5 and 6. Both are currently considered “unauthorized surrender[s] by Joseph Brant” in the Six Nations’ Land Rights document (26), and formal claims for compensation have been filed with both the Ontario and Federal Governments. Was Brant to blame for the fate of Blocks 5 and 6? While few consider that he acted for personal gain, even his sympathetic biographer concedes that “administering the Indians’ land affairs was a job for an acute legal mind, and Joseph, unhappily, had no training in the law” (Kelsay 631). And though it is unfair to blame Brant for wanting to assist Dochsteder’s heirs, “It is as well to draw a veil over the affairs of Block 6” (621).
*Jarvis was the father of the notorious Samuel Jarvis of the Indian Department (see #512 above).
619. Dunnville, at the point on the Grand River where it met the Feeder to the Welland Canal, was named for John Henry Dunn, receiver general of Upper Canada and president of the Welland Canal Company (1825-33). It was incorporated as a town in 1900, then amalgamated to form a larger township in 1974. In 2001 it was amalgamated again and now is merely an “unincorporated community” within Haldimand County. Formerly the largest community in Haldimand County, its population of about 6,000 has now been surpassed by Caledonia’s.
620. This giant fibreglass model of a mudcat – a flathead catfish – greets visitors to Centennial Park on the western edge of Dunnville. It’s more than 15 metres long, was sculpted by local artist Mike Walker, and unveiled in 2009. The mudcat, which is caught locally, is Dunnville’s mascot, and gives its name to the town’s annual festival and its junior hockey team.
Can you eat mudcat? Opinions differ, but if these Grand River bottom dwellers are caught in clean water, they reputedly make good eating. Otherwise, they taste … muddy.
621. Another, more baffling installation stands on the bank of Thompson Creek in Centennial Park. The Grand Remediator (2019-20) by Paul Chartrand is a metal dinghy arranged at a 60° angle to the earth with the names of local flora and fauna written on its sides and abstract concepts like “activism” and “biomimicry” inscribed on its bottom. Here’s the artist’s statement: “A partially buried aluminum boat is covered with words and phrases transcribed from ‘mind-maps’ created by local residents. These texts were generated during walks, talks, and communal meals that featured community leaders and focused on river ecology and the interconnections between land and water. The workshops taught the skill of mind-mapping: an alternative to traditional note-taking that focuses on the flow of concepts to facilitate the meaningful formation of memories.”
622. Riverside Cemetery in Dunnville is on the bank of the Grand at a spot where the river is at its widest point, the stream here undivided by islands.
623. Dunnville boasts some fine period houses. This one’s the 1905 Lalor Estate at 241 Broad Street West. It’s 6,100 sq. ft. and is big enough to be converted into … you name it. Not sure about that statuary, though …
624. … or how about this one built in 1850 at 101 Lock Street, a five-minute walk from downtown? It was recently on sale for $1.49M. For that you get 4,449 sq. ft., 7 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, 8 parking spaces, and three self-contained rentable apartments.
625. What Dunnville Gives Back to Me … is a long thin mural on Central Lane at Chestnut Street, downtown Dunnville. It consists of 15 inch squares each painted by a different young artist on the theme implied by the title.
626. The backs of buildings on Queen Street, downtown Dunnville.
627. The Merritt Room on the corner of Main and Queen in Dunnville has been around since 1837. It’s named for William Hamilton Merritt, the projector of the First Welland Canal, which opened in 1829. The southern end of the current (Fourth) Welland Canal is about 35 km west of here at Port Colborne.
The Welland Canal bypasses Niagara Falls, offering a navigable route for shipping between Lakes Erie and Ontario. The First Canal conducted vessels between Lake Ontario and the Welland (a.k.a. Chippawa) River, which joins the Niagara River upstream of the Falls. A “feeder” canal was constructed from the Welland River to the Grand River, as only the Grand could provide sufficient water to maintain the Canal’s navigability. The west end of the Feeder met the Grand here at what would become the site of Dunnville; the Feeder’s east end was at the site of what is now the city of Welland. By 1845 and the completion of the Second Welland Canal, which provided an artificial waterway all the way from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie without using the Welland and Niagara Rivers, the Feeder had proved indispensable. It had been deepened to allow shipping on it too, thereby offering a secondary route between the Lakes.
For much more about the Welland Canals, please see my 10-part photoblog, starting here.
628. (Top) Dunnville Bridge is the last fixed span over the lower Grand. It’s a steel and concrete I-beam eight span constructed in 1963 and twice rehabilitated since. The span visible here is about 200 m long, but its south end is on an island, and it’s another 700 m before you actually reach the Grand’s southern shore at Byng.
There has been a bridge here in Dunnville since 1835, the first being a wooden one known as the Long Bridge, that cost £1,250 to build. Annual flooding caused it to be replaced three times. In each case these early bridges were built right on top of the dam (see #629 below). The current bridge, however, was built just to the west (upstream) of the dam.
(Bottom) Long Bridge in 1910, in a V shape that followed the line of the dam. Three years later this, the second bridge, was gone: “It was around three o’clock in the afternoon one Saturday about mid-March when the flood waters started coming and by six o’clock the bridge collapsed … the ice in the river began to hit the abutments under the bridge and just knocked them out … about 85 feet of bridge went down and then turned over … and by next morning there wasn’t a trace of the bridge” (Farquharson 34).
629. The Dunnville Dam on the Grand was constructed in 1829 to help maintain water levels on the Feeder Canal and subsequently the First Welland Canal. A lock was built in 1845 on the northern side of the River so shipping could bypass the dam. However, the construction of the dam had unforeseen consequences: “water rose quickly behind it and flooded thousands of acres of flat land between Dunnville and Cayuga. Among them were the cornfields of the Six Nations … Needless to say, they had never been asked if they approved of the canal plans” (Styran 248-9). Compensation claims for flooding were being made as late as 1876.
630. The view downstream from Garfield Disher Park, just east of the dam.
631. “Thousands of acres of marshland at the mouth of the Grand River were covered with wild rice” (MacDonald, Grand Heritage 51).
Manoomin or Northern wild rice (Zizania palustris) has been harvested by First Nations for centuries. Today it’s an expensive delicacy. Does it still grow in the vast reed-covered wetlands near the mouth of the Grand? If it does, no one’s letting on.
632. (Top) By 1845, the Feeder to the Welland Canal had two branches, one from Dunnville and the other from Port Maitland, both starting at different points on the lower Grand. The two branches joined at Stromness.
(Middle) This is what remains of a section of the Dunnville branch of the Feeder, which once accommodated shipping down the Grand River Navigation from Brantford.
(Bottom) For most of its length from Stromness to Junction through the Wainfleet Marsh, the Feeder Canal now looks like this. It was gradually abandoned from 1881, as by then Lake Erie provided the water to keep the expanded Third Welland Canal navigable.
Map 44B. Port Maitland and the mouth of the Grand River as it enters Lake Erie. There’s plenty of P in Esplanade Park on the west side near the end of the pier, but only a few spots on the east by the Cairn. C = Cairn, East Park; F = Feeder Canal, Port Maitland Branch; L = Lock; LH = Lighthouse. M = RCAF Museum; MH = McCallum House.
633. (Top) The mansion (1872, the date above the central window) built by Lachlan McCallum. McCallum (1823-1903), born on the Hebridean island of Tiree, came to Canada in 1842. He bought property at Broad Creek, the point where the Feeder branches joined, and renamed it Stromness. (Bottom) Lachlan McCallum, M.P. and Senator, and his family at their home.
McCallum was the founder of the Dunnville Naval Brigade. He saw action during the Fenian Raid of 1866, the last and least-known major American invasion of Canadian territory. The Fenians were Americans of Irish extraction, many of them battle-hardened Civil War veterans, who invaded Canada West in 1866, supposedly to force Britain to grant Irish independence. About 1,300 Fenians crossed the Niagara River, captured Fort Erie, and ambushed Canadian forces at Ridgeway, where there was a pitched battle in which more Canadian soldiers than Fenians were killed or wounded. During this period McCallum commanded the “war tug” W.T. Robb. “The Robb … picked up the Welland Field Battery in Port Colborne and headed for the Niagara River … at Black Creek it picked up 59 Fenian prisoners. Then the little company of 108 men, armed only with short Enfields and sword bayonets, returned to Fort Erie, where they encountered [the Fenian army] returning from the battle at Ridgeway. The Canadians were greatly outnumbered. Twenty-seven of the battery and ten of the company were captured. McCallum, who was the only man in uniform and thus easily recognized, narrowly escaped with his life as he and his men returned to the Robb. Although they were under heavy gunfire, the plucky little ship managed to escape and retuned to Port Colborne with the prisoners and the survivors of the Fort Erie battle” (MacDonald, Grand Heritage 151).
At Stromness McCallum came to own a sawmill, lumber mill, cheese factory, general store, hotel, blacksmith shop, and boatyard, and became very wealthy. He was the first MP (Liberal-Conservative) for Monck, the local seat in the new Dominion Parliament, and in 1887 he was appointed to the Senate. His house is now a wellness retreat.
634. The fairly well-preserved remains of the lock (ca. 1845) on the Port Maitland branch of the Feeder Canal. Through here, shipping on Lake Erie could access the Feeder and subsequently the Welland Canal (or vice-versa). The lock has been cleaned up by dedicated local volunteers.
635. The Lynsey Lenore is a 19-metre fishing boat built 1992, here moored at the end of the former Feeder Canal. A classic “Turtlebacker” fishing tug, it’s owned by Minor Fisheries Ltd. of Port Colborne. Minor Fisheries is a family-owned Lake Erie fishing institution, who offer freshly-caught perch, walleye, whitefish, rainbow trout, smelt, and white bass at their market and restaurant in Port Colborne.
636. The view from the east bank of the River across Port Maitland Harbour to the residential part of the village, population about 100, on the west bank. “This harbour of Port Maitland … has always been considered as the best harbour on the north shore of this lake. As early as 1820 it was improved by the building of short piers on either side of the mouth of the river, which on several occasions have been repaired and added to, until now they extend some five hundred yards into the lake, with a fully up-to-date lighthouse on the end of the west pier, thus making it the best harbour of refuge on this lake. During some of the extreme gales so common on Lake Erie it is often packed with hundreds of vessels of all classes seeking shelter in it” (Imlach).
Once called simply River Mouth, Port Maitland was renamed in 1846 after Sir Peregrine Maitland (1777-1854), the 4th lieutenant governor of Upper Canada from 1818-28. A major-general, Maitland had served with distinction at the Battle of Waterloo. In Upper Canada he supported the anti-Reformist Family Compact and was an early proponent of the Residential School system for “civilizing” Native children. Maitland was a first-class cricketer, a relative of Jane Austen by marriage, and an ancestor of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Port Maitland Harbour is sleepy these days, but things were very different as the twentieth century began: “It boasted numerous passenger excursion boats travelling to and from places like Fort Erie, Grove and Crystal Beach ON, Fredonia, Buffalo, and Dunkirk NY, and Erie PA. These were not small … motor boats. They were large ships able to accommodate from three hundred to nine hundred and eighty tourists per trip. Many of these ships had overnight accommodations and recreational facilities” (Grand Dispatch 1).
637. The cairn in Port Maitland East Park, at Brown’s Point by the Harbour. It bears four different plaques, one on each side. The plaque above notes that from 1815-34 there was a British naval depot here at the mouth of the Grand. “By May 1816, 187 enlisted men were stationed there, along with eight civilians, including shopkeepers and clerks. Also present were the wives and children of some of the men. The Rush-Bagot Treaty* of 1817 seriously reduced military presence on the Great Lakes … by 1823 there were fewer than a dozen men at the depot” (MacDonald, Haldimand History, 37). The Naval Depot was manned by Scottish Highlanders and was abandoned by 1850. Its location is bounded by a yellow line on the map at #618 above.
A plaque on another side refers to the Naval Depot Cemetery, the location of which is now uncertain. “A point of much interest here is the old military graveyard, where from the drifting nature of the sand and the inroads made by the lake on the bank, the remains of many an old veteran are brought to light.” (Imlach)
On a third side, a plaque notes that “The Feeder Canal brought a dramatic increase in River traffic to Dunnville. Port Maitland was one of the finest harbours on the north shore of Lake Erie. A great many boats would seek refuge in the mouth of the Grand River from the vicious storms.”
On the fourth side: “Port Maitland was a major fresh water commercial fishing port from the mid 1800s until the late 1950s. Fishing took place in the Grand River and Lake Erie, netting abundant amounts of sturgeon, bass, herring, whitefish, pickerel and perch. Gradually, Port Maitland became the home of one of the largest inland fishing fleets in the world.” There is still a commercial fishery on Lake Erie, though at a much reduced scale thanks to years of overfishing.
By the cairn is another plaque indicating the southern terminus of the Grand Valley Trail. There is no public access to the continuation of Haldimand 64 or to the mouth of the Grand River beyond East Park, as it’s private land owned by Beckley Beach Cottagers Association.
*The Rush-Bagot Treaty, signed in the aftermath of the War of 1812, laid the foundation for the demilitarization of the Canada-US border, all 8,891 km of it. It’s the longest border between two countries in the world.
638. We’ve now crossed the Dunnville Bridge and are en route to Port Maitland village on the west side of the Grand. The No. 6 RCAF Dunnville Museum is on the site of No. 6 Service Flying Training School (SFTS) of the Royal Canadian Air Force. From 1940-44, 2,436 pilots from Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and USA earned their wings here. In the memorial garden by the entrance is a Harvard Trainer (a.k.a. North American Aviation T-6 Texan) mounted on a pedestal. The number 47 on its side denotes the number who lost their lives during training at the former SFTS.
The Museum displays a number of vintage aircraft: a Yale, a Cornell, a Fleet Finch, a Grumman Tracker, and models of a Spitfire fighter and a Mosquito bomber. The former base and airport on this site is now closed to flight operations. Museum opening hours: in spring and summer, Saturday, Sunday, and Holidays, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm; rest of year, Tuesdays, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm; entry is free, donations welcome.
639. We’re now on the west side of the Harbour. Only a couple of recreational vessels are plying the river mouth, though there are plenty of fishers on the longer, western pier. The shorter eastern pier at left, not accessible to the public, ends with a small tower crowned in summer by cormorants keenly aware of the local fishing opportunities.
640. The Grand Dispatch (October 2000) recalls the halcyon days of fishing at Port Maitland: “’Fish were caught by the tons, by both commercial and sport fishermen. There are stories … where sports fishermen outfished any fisherman I have ever met at Beckley Beach. One afternoon last week Col. McIntyre, of Buffalo, caught 620 perch with a rod and line at Port Maitland. This is no fish story, but an actual fact.’ So says the Dunnville Gazette in 1891. Sturgeons weighing in at 170 lbs. were not uncommon and catching of Maskinonge [i.e., muskellunge, a kind of pike] weighing 50 lbs. was even more common. One man claims to have caught 250 herring at Port Maitland in one hour without even using bait!” (1-2).
641. On a clear, crisp November afternoon, only a few hardy souls fish from the Port Maitland west pier as the sun begins its descent into Erie through scattered cloud.
642. Port Maitland lighthouse stands at the end of the western pier. The first lighthouse here was erected in 1846, then blown down in 1870. Its second avatar lasted only five years before burning down. In November 1874, the American schooner Augustus Ford was caught in a terrible storm on Erie. “The sea swept over the vessel, filling its cabin and forcing the six people aboard to seek shelter above deck. Captain Pease, two crewmen, and Lizzie Sullivan, the cook, got atop the cabin deck, while Daniel Bigelow sought shelter behind the mainmast and John Mack went aloft and wrapped himself in the foretopsail. The four atop the cabin deck were frozen to death during the night, and by morning were encased in a large piece of ice. Bigelow and Mack both survived the ordeal” (lighthousefriends.com).
The lighthouse keeper, Fergus Scholfield, had only one leg, the other having been shot away at the Battle of Ridgeway (see #633 above). He was initially blamed for the disaster as the lighthouse was not illuminated at the time. Later it was found that the pier had been damaged, making it impossible for him to access the light.
The new lighthouse on a rebuilt pier began operating in 1875. That formed the basis for the current light, now on a concrete base and with metal siding. No longer manned and not open to the public, it’s maintained by the Canadian Coast Guard and sports a flashing green light.
643. Looking lakeward from the lighthouse at the end of the pier.
(Top) On a clear November day, three objects occupy the far eastern horizon of Lake Erie. That on the left would seem to be a ship, the middle one’s surely some kind of drilling rig, but the one on the right, seemingly floating above the lake’s surface, is a mystery to me.
(Bottom) In July, a bulk carrier from the Canadian Algoma fleet, probably the Algoma Discovery, ploughs Lake Erie westward, soon after emerging from the Welland Canal. Behind her, you can see bluffs in New York State more than 40 km across the Lake.
644. The Grand River squeezes itself between the Port Maitland Harbour piers and into Lake Erie. From there its waters, now a drop in the enormous bucket of the Great Lakes, flow down the Niagara River, over the Falls, through the rapids of the Niagara Gorge into Lake Ontario, then all the way down the mighty St. Lawrence into the distant Atlantic Ocean.
And so ends our journey down the Grand River. Many thanks for following it.
Holmström Ruddick 